Supporting a team that has just spent three seasons in the Premier League has turned me into a footballing snob. And I’m not proud of it.

When the name Lewis Grabban first popped up in the same sentence as Norwich City I admit to not having a ‘scooby’ who they were talking about. Only when researching a piece on Andrew Surman’s loan spell at Bournemouth did I discover they were talking about their leading goalscorer.

Alas, that’s what the Premier League does to a football supporter. Even though the media chose to treat Norwich as gatecrashers at a party intended only for the crème de la crème, we started to believe it was our rightful place. The only place to be. The rest of the footballing world became little more than an irritant – those below us in the pyramid barely worthy of a second glance.

How awful is that.

Luckily (is that the right word?) the sledgehammer that is relegation is guaranteed to send you flying from your lofty perch and bring you crash, bang, wallop back into the real world. It also forces you to swot up on your Championship facts and figures.

Did you know, for example, that none of the top five goalscorers in the 2013/14 Championship played for a promoted side? Or that Brighton kept most clean sheets? Or that QPR used 40 different players throughout the season? I didn’t.

Lewis Grabban impressed for Bournemouth last season (Picture: Getty)

I also discovered that in signing the aforementioned Master Grabban, City have acquired themselves a lean, hungry and hard-working 26-year-old who, last season, averaged a goal every other game. A ratio that for City supporters is impossible to comprehend.

To have beaten a host of other club’s – including Cardiff – for his signature is, for many, the first piece of positive news to emanate from Carrow Road this summer. And the biggest surprise of all… there’s been barely a murmur of discontent from even the more extreme factions of the Yellow Army.

Grabban, it seems, is to be afforded a chance to impress before the knives come out; something of a rarity these days.

As things stand he’ll be competing for a place in the City forward line with Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Gary Hooper, Luciano Becchio and newly-capped Jamaican international Jamar Loza, although one would expect at least two of those to depart for pastures new in the next few months.

Given that Van Wolfswinkel’s aim of being in the Dutch World Cup squad was scuppered by him managing only one Premier League goal, it’s hard to imagine him going toe-to-toe with Millwall’s finest at The Den, or locking horns with the best that Rotherham has to offer at the New York Stadium. I may be wrong, but…

Hooper is another who may be lured elsewhere. While Neil Adams has expressed a desire to retain his services. it’d be a surprise if ‘Arry didn’t try his damnedest to tempt him to Shepherd’s Bush.

Time will tell of course, but City’s summer rebuild is finally underway.